


take that away (and)

by WeAreTomorrow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Civil War Fix-It, Fix-It, Like really really slow, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Slow Burn, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-10 21:58:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7009843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeAreTomorrow/pseuds/WeAreTomorrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the sun goes down, Tony is forced to admit that nobody is coming to save him.</p><p>(Or, the one in which Tony Stark is left Siberia by everyone who said they would be there and must build himself back up from the ground before he can save the rest of the world.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "I Found" | Amber Run

**Author's Note:**

> Because this movie hurt me. And I want to hurt it back.

The truth is that people will always leave him.

It’s the first lesson the world teaches him, long before his parents ( _his fucking parents_ ). Tony thinks, lying bleeding and numb in this ugly concrete heart he will dream about later, that it might be the last lesson the world teaches him. It takes him a long time to realize he is not going to die. That Steve did not kill him.

He does not think about the shield coming down at him, cannot look at the glinting, polished rim at his feet. The last symbol he put his faith into. It’s completely undamaged. He hurts  _everywhere_. Does not think of his hands around metal wrists, does not think of frayed sparking wires, wires that unravel into nothing, does not think of the sound it makes torn apart, does not think of metal hands around her ( _anyone but her, anything but this_ ). Cannot. Thinks of Steve instead.

Stupidly, thinks of his father’s first stories. Thinks of the black and white photos over their fireplace where other children had their graduation pictures. Thinks of what he would have done to be noticed. Realizes, embarrassed, as the last strangleholds of it unravelled in his gut too heavy for him to move, that the small, tucked away parts of his youth still worshiped the man.  _Steve_.

Because Tony realizes something else as he counts his heartbeats in the snow, waiting to be rescued because he  _cannot get up he cannot move cannot—_

The truth is, nobody has ever loved him.

It hurts, knowing this. Tony likes to lie to himself. But trapped in the metal shreds of the only good thing he ever did with his life, he is cold in his bones, so tired he feels like dust already. And he cannot lie about this. 

It was not enough, not any of it. All of the sacrifices, all of the nightmares, all of the nights spent pushing himself to unmake and remake, to destroy himself in order to protect ( _take that away and)._  He wanted to be reborn. Had thought in the burning sands of Afganistan, in the moments Yinsen stopped his heart to save him that he had been a force, re-directed. Had thought giving up his reactor for a heart ( _take that away and_ ) would make him human.

There isn’t anyone left alive who knows this, but Tony Stark is afraid of the dark. When Pepper leaves, Tony has nothing. Not even thin blue light straining through his shirt fibers. He did not see it coming, but that doesn’t mean he is surprised. Pepper, who won’t return his calls because she thinks he will beg her to come back when he’s only trying to say  _I’m sorry._  Pepper, who won’t pick up because she thinks that he’s starting drinking again. Pepper, who he would have destroyed by loving.

When the sun goes down, Tony is forced to admit that nobody is coming.

The frost has settled deep into the metal joints. Tearing his way out his metal womb is  _agony_. He cannot breathe. It is too dark to see if he is coughing blood. He crawls to the entrance, leaving the bloody wreckage of his suit behind ( _take that away and_ ).

It is not a rebirth. He is still afraid of the dark.

It is Ross that finds him and the makeshift distress signal, that has been looking for him. Ross who doesn’t know what happens but  _understands_ , those flat snake eyes and the sharpened white teeth cutting right through the raw skin. There are no more masks here, at the end of the line, and Tony is more vulnerable than he has been in years. 

Ross says nothing. He pulls the shield ( _my father’s shield_ ) up from the ice and smiles. 

A whisper in his ear: "He who pulleth this sword from this stone, will be named King."

Tony feels sick. Tony feels cold. Blank-faced medical personal with clinical hands and latex gloves undress him like an object. Take his pulse, push at his ribs, document bruising, talk to each other over the ice melting in his hair. A light flashes; they put away the camera before he can say _no_. Water trickles down his spine. Eventually, Tony feels nothing at all.

( _take that away and what are you?)_

 

 


	2. "All We Do" | Oh Wonder

Of course he dreams about it.

Tony comes back to an empty Tower. ( _Not home anymore, just back._ )

They leave him on the helicopter pad, half-drugged, with bandages around his ribcage so tight it hurts to breathe. They tell him the damage isn’t permanent. He will survive.

Ross had come into the Medical bay, flicking his wrist dismissively to clear the room. When they were alone, he’d pulled back a hand and punched him— _hard_ —in the chest. Once upon his time, his knuckles would’ve cracked against reinforced glass. Now, Tony doubles over retching with pain. His broken ribs burning as he heaves.

“Listen carefully, Stark.” Those flat eyes inches from his face, consumed with hate and satisfaction. “Have you finally realized that there are no such thing as heroes?”

Tony spits blood at him. A line of it drips down his chin, into his stubble.

Gently, Ross wipes it away.

“Oh, Tony.” He sighs. “I _own_ you now.”

In his dreams, he is running in a labyrinth of concrete, endless circles, but the sun never rises. He is being hunted. Tony can only run for so long and the thing hunting him is patient, is _not human_. He is running through his broken ribs, through the splintering feeling in his lung. He is running even though he is falling, even though he is helpless, even though he is already dead.

In his dreams, the shield comes down on him again and again and again.

There’s a press conference. There is always a press conference. It’s unfair, has always been unfair, the way his tragedies are also global conflicts and he cannot flip off every talking head entitled to poke at the sore spots in the name of national security. The news networks say things like “notorious playboy and wildcard Tony Stark showed a stunning lack of leadership, even for him” and “as the golden age of heroes comes to an end, who is to blame?”

Tony reads the teleprompter. He does not smile.

Rhodey is still in the hospital. There is no expense spared, no doctor Tony does not contact. It was never supposed to be Rhodey. It was never supposed to be anybody but him because he is always the collateral damage. He is always the sacrifice.

Tony turns on every light in the building. The first metal leg brace is too stiff, too cage-like. The second isn’t responsive enough. The third isn’t efficient. The fourth is streamlined but unstable. The fifth is programed with an Irish jig. Tony destroys them all and starts from scratch. The sixth one is mathematically impossible and requires revolutionizing the biotech industry.

Jarvis would have said something by now. FRIDAY was programmed when he had a family to look after him, and says nothing.

He misses his old friend. It was a hard loss for him, one he couldn’t share with the others because they couldn’t understand. But Vision is not the constant voice he shared his life with over multiple decades. Without Jarvis there would not have been an Ironman. They’d learned to _fly together_. Tony could be weak around Jarvis, the way he could not be with another physical human being. And he’d known deep down that his AI cared about him more than he’d ever written into the programing.

Jarvis never would have left. But Vision was gone, leaving nothing behind but the gaping hole in the layers of crushed floor plans. Thanks Wanda.

He destroys everything and starts from scratch.

He forces himself to finish the protein drinks Natasha used to leave in his fridge when his fingers get too shaky for the blowtorch and orders FRIDAY to lock him out of all of the liquor cabinets. His hands are full of new scars and his wrists ache and pop in the early morning hours. He has never had the hands of a rich boy.

The package is hand delivered in the night.

He thinks about checking the security footage but can’t think what would be worse—to see somebody or nobody? He knows immediately who, how could he not, but can’t stop himself from opening it. The burner phone falls into his lap quietly, like a sigh and Tony freezes. Can’t believe they’re going to do it like this, like fucking forbidden lovers sneaking around behind their parents back. The letter is stupid.

Trying to be sincere, but careful of saying anything concrete in case Tony decides to go to the authorities. He is tempted, for a moment. Just out of spite, so that Steve knows how angry he is, how unbelievably _not even close_ these words are to making it okay. To making him okay.

But the authorities is Ross. And Tony will drink acid first before handing over another piece of soul to that man.

He burns the letter but despite himself, the words are already stitched under his skin. It tugs at him when he moves too fast, when he bends over the table with the hammer between both hands. Tony looks down at the disposable burner phone. Disposable. He thinks about the fact that for thirty years, he _fucking hated_ his dad for getting behind the wheel, for taking his mother with him. So Tony does what he does best and brings the hammer down. He destroys and rebuilds and destroys ( _and_ ). He thinks to himself, _something’s gotta give_. It always does.

On TV, they’re calling it the Civil War. Somebody releases grainy security cam footage of the airport and now everyone knows that Tony Stark is not fast enough, not smart enough, did not see this coming. He thought he could catch all the falling pieces and now look at him. Look at him.

At the hospital, Rhodey tries out his new legs. He can stand but he cannot walk.

Tony destroys everything and starts from scratch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapters, hopefully they'll get longer as I get a clearer sense of direction for the story. And I promise Tony is not going to wallow himself to death :)


	3. Third | Hiatus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are gonna be picking up plot and action wise after this chapter, promise. Thank you everyone so much for the comments, I've been overwhelmed with the response.
> 
> Also, for those of you who have wondered, the chapters titles are all songs that I've been writing this story too. That capture the pain and longing of post-Civil War Tony. I encourage you all to check them out :)

In his dreams, Tony strangles his mother.

He can feel the window glass in his fingers where he punches through to grab her. Inside his head he is screaming ( _not her, anybody but her)_ but his hands move like they are disconnected, no, not disconnected. He can feel them, maybe more than he ever has before, they are _his hands_ and _he is moving them_. He can feel her heartbeat racing, her tears making his grip slip, making her gasp ( _anybody please, anybody_ ) in a brief moment of air. It will only prolong the death, that momentary breath she steals.

And Tony, he knows what it’s like to suffocate. Has suffocated in water, in air, in space. He is an expert.

He’d rather be shot a thousand times. Rather be beaten to death. Dismembered. Any physical pain he would trade in a moment, rather than face the slow agonized death of his mind. The pressure in his wrecked chest, his frantic lungs. The overcoming of weakness, the hungry black around the edges. Suffocation.

In his dreams, Tony _strangles his mother_.

Sometimes, in his weaker moments, he wonders if Steve was right to keep this from him. If the Captain had know, instinctively, that this would be a truth that would break him.

If Tony were drunk, if Jarvis was still here, he might have asked— _what if I was wrong?_

About all of it. The Accords, the accountability, the difference between right and necessary, the line in the sand that kept moving whenever he thought he was finally safe, finally _atoning_ , only to look up and see miles of desert between him and the rest of world’s expectations.

What if he was wrong to live?

On his TV screen, the world continues to break. A war erupts in Ulandi between the corrupt psdueo-monachy and the violent religious rebels. Both sides declare moral superiority and divine right; they rip through their own citizens without flinching. Children are trained to kill their parents. Teenagers with dead eyes and a gun in each hand grin for CNN and BBC.

The crumbling government calls for UN support in eradicating the rebels. They cite the indiscriminate mass bombings. The religious fanaticism— _death to nonbelievers_ , _death to false gods_. They call for the Avengers.

Tony waits by the phone, thinking of nothing. Thinking of idols.

Tony watches Ulandi drop mustard gas on an entire city. Thousands are people are dying, have gone blind. Children with no faces, just melted plastic skin. Political science majors with nice teeth and curled hair are invited to a studio roundtable to debate the meaning of genocide.

Ulandi says, “No child is innocent.”

The UN forms a subcommittee to address the issue.

It's two in the morning and Tony is taking caffeine pills, so jacked up on nothing but liquids that his heart is just a faint whine in his chest like it used to be—before everything, before Pepper even. A lonely man and his crossed wires. It doesn’t feel good, but it feels right.

 _Boss_ , says FRIDAY from the ceiling and he nearly slices through his knuckles. She’s been quiet lately. He wonders if he programed his AIs to be lonely. _You’ve got an incoming call._

For exactly three seconds, nothing in his body works. Even his cells stop.

But then: “The decision’s been made. We’re calling in the Avengers.”

Ross’s voice oozes from the ceiling, bodiless and crude. It’s almost too much for him to handle, strung out on so much caffeine he feels like his synapses are bloated with it and he needs to go faster, be faster, get there _first_.

"You mean _Avenger_. Last one standing. Do I get a medal?"

Ross ignores him, talks right past him like air. “My team will be landing at the Tower in fifteen minutes. This has been authorized as a stealth mission, dress appropriately.”

“Have you meet me, Ross?” Tony laughs, but he’s out of practice. “I don’t do understated.”

But Ross can see right through him. Ross knows what his insides look like. His voice drips from the ceiling, ugly, obscene: “It’s true, you are quite _naive_.”

Ross knows about the video.

Pain rips through Tony’s chest like it’s the first time. Like Steve’s shield. Like Obie’s fingers. Like Stark-made shrapnel to the heart. Can he not keep a shred of pain to himself? He grabs at the edge of the table, unsteady, his vision going too sharp with all the stimulates in his bloodstream.

 _Boss?_ FRIDAY calls out, worried.

On the other side of the line, he hears a pleased exhale of breath.

“Fifteen minutes, Tony.”

 _Think_ , he begs himself in the silence after the call disconnects, _you have to think._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Possible continuation if people are interested. It's been a while since I've written here but that movie won't let me be. I would love to eventually make this a fix-it (a very looooong, slow fix it because, fuck. You don't just come back from that with a letter and a phone call.)


End file.
